how many of the people who like the book have actually read the unabridged version? Does anybody have any clue how the percentages stand on that? And do the abridged versions abridge enough to make the apparently (yes, I haven't gotten around to reading this either... anyone seeing a pattern?) impressive dragging-out and delaying techniques more palatable, or perhaps even absent entirely?

Anyway, Dumas kind of seems to have an odd position in the literary canon - his works don't really have the literary strength to be in there, but somehow he has a name recognition and fame that few other writers have. I think it's because he's just that good at the adventure novel, usually with a heavy historical fiction background, even if real depth is only occasionally there. Passion, adventure, intrigue, romance, humour, it's all in there, in a mix that wasn't as classic and cliché at the time as it is now. Le Comte de Monte Cristo has that heavy dominating theme of vengeance, of course, but also the prison-escape part (which evidently remains a fascinating topic to this day) and all the charades. Now I'm wondering if there is a link from Dumas to Arsène Lupin, the great "gentleman-thief" of French crime fiction in the late nineteenth century, and master of disguises... probably. I should probably also stop rambling.